• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, January 4, 2008

As sales of music albums plummet, the industry seems to realize it needs to rethink its strategy.

Consider, Sony BMG will start selling DRM-free tracks on Amazon, where it will join the other three major labels in offering music without software that aims to limit people's ability to make copies of the tracks, according to Business Week.

Separately, Radiohead this week also changed its policy with respect to digital sales. The group has decided to sell "In Rainbows" on iTunes, where consumers can purchase single tracks, marking a reversal of its previous stance that its albums should only be sold in their entirety.

The moves come as Nielsen SoundScan is reporting that album sales are in free fall. Last year, just 500.5 million entire albums were sold, marking a 15% decline from 2006. But when music is available in formats other than entire albums, sales figures are encouraging. Total music sales, including sales of singles and music DVDs, totaled 1.37 billion, a 14% year-over-year increase.

Even though pirated music is available online for free -- despite the record industry's well-documented attempts to eradicate online copyright infringement -- many people are still purchasing music, at least for now. The record industry remains positioned to profit, but only if it makes music available in the formats that people are willing to pay for.